Dead Girl Walking by Linda Joy Singleton Page A

junction of a T-shaped hall, Cola whipped his tail around and crouched low as he faced me. With narrowed black eyes, he bared sharp angry teeth and growled.
    “Cola!” I jumped back. “What’s wrong?”
    In my head I heard an angry snarl: Leave!
    If he’d bit me, I couldn’t have been more surprised. “Cola, you don’t mean that!” I cried. “What’s wrong?”
    He growled again.
    “Why are you acting like this?”
    His fur bristled like sharp blades and he moved a step forward, glaring.
    I couldn’t figure out why he had turned vicious. It was like he didn’t even know me.
    Well, duh! I hit my palm to my head. Of course he didn’t recognize me.
    “Cola!” I cried softly. “I know I look different, but I’m still your best friend. Cola, I’m Amber.”
    He snarled, curling his lips in a dangerous, threatening warning.
    I know who you are . He didn’t actually speak out loud but I could hear him in my mind.
    “Then why are you acting like this?”
    You do not belong here , he mental-messaged.
    “Don’t you think I know that?” I pointed at myself. “Only no one will believe that I’m Amber, not Leah. I don’t want to be in this body, but I don’t know how to get back in my own. Can’t you help me?”
    It isn’t my job .
    “But my real body is going to … to die …” I wiped my eyes. “In two days.”
    His dark eyes softened as he shook his shaggy black head. I must work. Do not follow . Then he zoomed down the left hallway.
    Of course, I followed. I kept going, determined not to lose Cola and probably my last chance to fix my body problem.
    By the time I caught up with Cola, he was streaking through another set of “No Admittance” doors. Damn, what was it with him and forbidden areas? This time I didn’t slip by without notice. An elderly nurse looked up from a desk in furious surprise. She appeared frail enough to be one of her own patients, but the spunky little lady bellowed, “Stop!” Then she gave chase.
    The nurse slowed at a steep flight of stairs. I hurried up them, then made a sharp right behind Cola down a narrow hall. He passed through a closed door as if he and the door had no more substance than clouds.
    You’re not losing me so easily! I thought.
    I touched the door: impenetrable, solid wood. Through a small square window at eye level I glimpsed a wisp of a white curtain around a bed. I bent over to catch my breath, and as I stood again I noticed a medical chart tucked in a plastic wall container. I lifted the paper and tried to make sense of the medical scribbles. All I could decipher was the patient’s name: Timothy Alfred Cook.
    Lacking Cola’s ability to pass through solid objects, I twisted the knob and cautiously opened the door. The scent of antiseptics and hopelessness swallowed me. It was like falling into a coffin; sensing, without actually seeing the solitary figure in the hospital bed, that his closest companion was death.
    Still, there was no going back for me. “Never give up” was a repeated theme in all of my books, advice I tucked tight in my heart.
    The door fell silently shut behind me and I tiptoed forward. A TV droned on, but the wrinkled, pale man in the bed wasn’t watching. He stared up at the empty white ceiling with faded eyes and sadness. There were no flowers or cards on his table, as if he’d been abandoned by life and was just waiting for his body to give up, too.
    But then he noticed the dog beside his bed.
    I opened my mouth to call Cola but found that I couldn’t speak. I grabbed my throat, struggling to make any sound, but it was like someone had turned my volume to “off.” Not even a whisper escaped. A message flashed in my mind: Leave!
    “I can’t,” I whispered.
    Do not interfere with my job. Leave now!
    Cola sounded even angrier than before. Well, I was angry, too, at being stuck in the wrong body and no one believing me except Cola, who ordered me to leave instead of offering help. So I shook my head defiantly.
    “I know